The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1887-07-28
WHOLE NO. 1903.
A Cute DaIky.

There is one sleeping-car porter in
this country who'll not die poor, if
thrift and smartneSS count for any,
thing, said . gentleman who has Just
returned from a trip TO California.
'SOon after we left Omaha the porter
of our car began to talk base bali and
to let us all know that he was base
ball crank. He grew rather familiar,
too, considering his station, but no
body objected, for it is always best on
a cross-country trip to keep on the
good side of the porter. Among the
passengers We're several gentlemen
who take little interest in base ball,
and so long in the afternoon, when the
porter told about the sport some passen-
gers had had the week before, and sug-
gested that jus to kill time we i'm
itate their example, the gemmem
maxim up base ball pool at S. a
guess, dc gemman guessin' clostist to
de way de fo' league games comes out
TO take the pot, there were seven re-
sponses. After the money had been
paid into the hands of one who was
selected to act as stakeholder, and the
subscribers had written out the guesses
and signed their names to them, the
porter humbly asked permission TO
come in. Though we all thought the
chap was displaying considerable
freshness, so long as he had suggested
the scheme, in which we had begun
to take good deal of interest, there
was no one to object. SO the porter
put up his s. and filed his guess with
the stakeholder. The next day we got
a paper at Cheyenne, and You can i'm
agine how surprised we We're when
we discovered that only one man in
the party had named the four winners,
and that man the porter. The way the
fellow grinned when he put the $40
away III his pocket made me feel sus-
picious, and so later on, when another
pool of the same kind was proposed
decided to stay out and keep an eye on
the porter. About three O'Clock the
train stopped at a little station, and |
saw the porter making a break for the
telegraph Office. When he came out
he had a message, which he was read
ING eagerly. He sat down in the smok-
ing car and scribbled something on d
piece of paper carefully consulting his
message as he did so, and then walked
back to the sleeping-car, remarking
that he'd give the gemmen a chance TO
get q part of de stuff back, and de-
posted with the stakeholder a S. bill and
the slip of paper I'd seen him writing
on in the smoking-car.
Having found out what his game
was l took the stakeholder one side
and said to him: this darky is bunkoing
us. 1t is now after o'clock. In New
York and Boston it is after 3. The
games have been played. We haven't
been thinking of that, but this darky
has. He Just received a message tell
ing him which clubs won, and he has
named those clubs here, and expects to
take our money, just as he did yester-
day
So the stake holder and / took out all
the gucsses and changed them all TO
read the same clubs that the porter had
named, and put them back. Then we
posted the ether follows. Next day
when the returns were opened and it
was found that each guesscr had named
the foar winners, it was worth five
times So apiece to us to see the express
sions which chased each other up and
down that shrewd darky's face
ChiCaQO HerdLd'S Train Tax.